Learn about Specific Foundation "Neutrality Agreement" Cases

What is Top Down Organizing?

Because employees increasingly vote against unionization, Big Labor has developed new techniques to impose forced unionization on employees from the "top down." Key elements of Top Down organizing include "neutrality agreements" and "card check" campaigns.

What is a "Neutrality Agreement"?

A “neutrality agreement” is a contract between a union and an employer under which the employer agrees to support a union's attempt to organize its workforce. Often employers agree to hand over workers to the union after the Union Bosses initiate a "corporate campaign" that uses publicity stunts, frivolous law suits, boycotts and blackmail to pressure the company to sign the "Neutrality Agreement." Once signed, company management and the Union Bosses use a number of methods to force workers to be represented by the company's chosen union. (Find out more about the methods most often used or see examples of "Neutrality Agreements)

What is a "Card Check" Organizing Drive

In a "Card Check" organizing drive the employees are not permitted to vote on union representation in a secret ballot election. Instead, the employer pledges to automatically recognize the union without an election if the union presents the company with the requisite number of signed authorization cards. Experience shows that many employees are coerced or misled into signing these authorization cards.

State and Local Laws Imposing Neutrality & Card Check:

Similar to neutrality clauses in collective bargaining agreements, another tactic employed by unions to increase union membership without actually soliciting the preferences of workers is to incorporate neutrality agreements in local government wage ordinances. These ordinances often impose so-called "neutrality agreements" on employers who accept service contracts, operating grants, or tax abatements from local governments and bar employers from providing factual information about the possible downsides if unionization, should a union attempt to organize their workers.

They also prevent employers from insisting on a secret ballot election to protect their employees' rights and force employers to recognize the union as the monopoly bargaining representative when presented with a majority of signed authorization cards, despite the fact that often employees sign such cards under false pretences. Here are examples of these ordinances, which are likely pre-empted by the NLRA, that include neutrality or card-check provisions:

Other Top Down Organizing Methods

Project Labor Agreements

A “project labor agreement” is when the government awards contracts for public construction projects exclusively to unionized firms. Because the vast majority of contractors and their employees – more than 80 percent – have voluntarily opted against unionization when given the free choice, Big Labor has turned to politicians to remove that choice and impose union representation on employees from the top down. (Learn more about Project Labor Agreements)

See what the National Right to Work Foundation is doing to protect workers from the abuses associated with "Project Labor Agreements"